


The Nature of Women

by donttellmemyusernameisused



Series: Holmesbury Fics [3]
Category: Enola Holmes (2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Victorian age flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28713054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donttellmemyusernameisused/pseuds/donttellmemyusernameisused
Summary: Tewkesbury tries very hard to make sure he does not cage Enola in their marriage, but there is always the problem of his uncle and Enola is always too busy for one thing or another for him to tell her not to worry about it.// Sir Whimbrel sees in Enola a girl forced to do men’s job due to the early passing of her father and the absence of her brothers.  He sees it his duty to offer her shelter and protection, “to let her be a woman” as he has heard him say to his mother.   He sees her the way Mycroft Holmes must have seen his own sister – he patronises her.//I wrote this mostly because I watched the Netflix's video about Enola and people in the prudish Victorian era writing love messages to each other in code names on the papers' personal advertisement section and I remembered reading Conan Doyle's Sherlock as a kid thinking it was one of the most out of character but cute detail that Sherlock loves reading these agony columns.  So I just wanted to write a story where Tewky writes a ton of love messages like the love-sick puppy he is.
Relationships: Enola Holmes/Viscount "Tewky" Tewksbury
Series: Holmesbury Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968481
Comments: 5
Kudos: 172





	The Nature of Women

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone wants to watch the video I mentioned in the summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_npsmALqREk&t=181s
> 
> (For some reason the story showed up as part 4 of the series for me. If you encounter the same problem, please know that it's part 3 not part 4 of the series)

Tewkesbury folds the papers in half and starts reading the Personal Advertisements Column. There is an amusing conversation between two people called Icicle and Pug for days and he has been following it intently. The outburst from Pug on Friday hit differently than it should – 

_Dearest, you write briefly. Is it because my absence is no longer felt? I think of you daily. Write more._

“Well, if women are truly naturally worse at some things, Sir Whimbrel, it’s because we were never allowed to do them. My mother let me try everything, and I dare say I had gotten quite good at them,” Enola passes Tewkesbury the jam casually, eyes not moving away from the sandwiches in front of her –– she has grown quite fond of the sandwiches in Basilwether Hall. 

Icicle’s reply today is straightforward – 

_Life has been restless. I miss you dearly_ . _Will post letter on Monday._

Tewkesbury smiles, it’s funny how much he has grown to care about the idle love life of these two characters.

“My dear, I am sure growing up without a man in your life, you were forced to do many things against women’s nature ––”

Over the years, he has grown used to his uncle’s contrary opinions on many matters and has learnt to pick his battles. In turn, his uncle has grown to respect him as a worthy opinion of the occasional sparring of ideas, as he had once with his late father. His uncle sees polite words on the new political debate as a friendly gentlemen sport and increasingly Tewkesbury treats it with ease. He has had debates in the Lords that had ended with far more heat than his uncle’s inquiries and gone with those men for a drink in the Gentlemen’s Club afterwards. But Enola takes his uncle’s opinion far more personally, as it _is_ personal to her. And Sir Whimbrel sees in Enola a girl forced to do men’s job due to the early passing of her father and the absence of her brothers. He sees it his duty to offer her shelter and protection, “to let her be a woman” as he has heard him say to his mother. He sees her the way Mycroft Holmes must have seen his own sister – he _patronises_ her. 

Tewkesbury told her once that she did not have to go for Sunday tea so frequently if she did not wish it. His mother’s standing invitation was just that. She would understand that she has other engagements. 

“No,” Enola had said, face stone-cold with determination, “I would go.” 

Tewkewbury does not ask why. He suspects he knows anyway – _she was taught to fight_ and not showing up for Sunday tea is running away. So she would go even if she wants nothing but to slap the tea across his uncle's face sometimes. She will never be bothered to learn embroidery or wax roses or whatever she thinks other women do with their time, and she will never be able to sit so elegantly still but look as morbidly horrified as his mother is now, but she knows this –– 

“–– I doubt you would have any credible knowledge of the nature of women, having neither a wife nor a daughter, unless, of course, you see a woman everyday in the mirror like I do.” 

It takes a great deal of effort that Tewkesbury manages not to spill his tea on the papers. 

Later, Enola is searching for a book in his library. They can do that now, be alone in a room, after his mother is satisfied that they were properly engaged. Tewkesbury presses a rose against the dictionary. It is a hobby he has less and less time to entertain. Enola jumps down from the ladder, “I think your uncle is beginning to like me.” 

“What makes you think _that_?” 

“He poured me tea at the end,” she sits on his desk. 

“I pour you tea all the time, Enola Holmes.” Tewkesbury likes the way he can still make her blush. 

“Stay for dinner?” 

“I –,” Enola skips down the desk, “no. Got a case.” She waves her hand, gesturing at nothing in particular, “kidnap. Several girls are missing already. I need to go to the crime scene tomorrow.” 

_Sanderson’s Disappearing Girls_ – he had read it on the papers. It started when a girl disappeared from her orphanage. At first no one gave it much thought. Orphans ran away all the time. But it kept on happening in different orphanages near London. 

“Be careful.” He has no delusion to his choice of a wife and her interest to dangle her feet in the water to attract sharks. 

“You know I am,” she nods, already on her way out with the book. 

Tewkesbury reaches over to place a kiss on her empty ring finger, a reminder that she is not his yet. It scares him that the disappearing girls are all only a year or two younger than Enola; it scares him more that despite this, he would not quarrel with her if she wishes to investigate the case and it scares him cold at night that one day, she might be killed somewhere he has never been to before and he would only know when the great Sherlock Holmes tells him. 

“Better put a ring on her before she got whisked away by the next great adventure, Louis,” his friend Will said last time Enola solves his blackmail. 

But they had agreed it would be a long engagement, at least until he finishes his degree and she turns 21. They are both young and not ready for marriage – she has her adventures and he his sudden ascend through the societal ranks. And in an unusual deferral to Mycroft’s judgment, Enola has decided not to announce their engagement publicly. So her ring finger remains empty, until she chooses to make an announcement in the papers. 

There is a ring in his closet in his London residence so that he can put it on her as soon as possible after they announce the engagement. He doubts when the time comes Enola would care much for the design of the ring, but it would perhaps mean more to her that it was once given to his mother by his father, so he keeps it polished, and taps on its box for good luck when he heads down to the Lords. 

He rings for the butler once Enola leaves, writing a quick note and folding it once, “get this posted on the advertisements, Charles.” 

It is a game he has begun playing – to see how long Enola takes to realise he has been posting advertisements for her. He does not pretend to think he would outcode her, so he hopes to hide himself in the mundane. He always calls her a random flower or a plant he has given her before. The messages were brief and he never signed it with anything, fearing it would give him away immediately. There is not much he dares not say in front of her – for all her brazenness she is never impatient or unsympathetic. She would listen quietly as he woves childhood dreams into the ambitions of a rising Marquess. Large plans for the future and aspirations were never left unsaid, but smaller things, like his well-wishes to her health and her mind, slip away like her hand into the carriage: 

_Rose – Remember what I said on Sunday. I wish you a good night of sleep. Hope to see you again next week._

But she does not come next Sunday. His mother fusses, her brows furrowed with worry, “are you sure she is quite safe alone in London? With all those criminals? Louie, you must visit her more frequently.” 

“The girl killed a trained assassin at sixteen, Caroline,” Sir Whirbel assures her, “What good would Louie do? Give her flowers?” 

Tewkesbury raises his eyebrows, _huh,_ maybe his uncle does like her. 

He puts another advertisement in the papers: 

_Rowan – thinking of you day and night. I hope you are sound. I cannot wait for the next time I see you again._

He is beginning to sound like Pug, but that is good, he fades away into another love-sick fool Enola would skip over in the columns. He adds, after some contemplation, _mother and uncle wish you well._

\-- 

London is damp and cold when he arrives on Tuesday morning. He stalks over the streets aimlessly after his classes, the sky is turning dark earlier and he almost thinks if he walks home slowly enough it would prolong the sunlight. 

“Your _uncle_ wishes her well?”

Tewkesbury turns to find Sherlock walking alongside him. He blushes, realising what he meant. Never in a million years had he thought Sherlock of all people would read through the columns. Passing interest for a case perhaps, but certainly not long enough to figure out his pattern? 

“Mr. Holmes,” he recovers quickly, “never thought you would read the personals.”

He treats it as a small victory that Sherlock does not answer. 

“Do you know if she is safe? She said –”

“ _Sanderson’s Disappearing Girls._ Yes. Expect her to climb into your room tonight, hopefully not too poorly injured,” Sherlocks hands him a bag. 

“What,” Tewkesbury blinks at the bag, opening to find bandages and medicinal herbs inside, “you solved it? And you let her run straight into danger after you _solved_ it?” 

“It’s bad form to steal a case from another detective, young Marquess, even if she is your own sister. She can solve it. The facts are all there for her to see. She is just... ” Holmes pauses and his resemblance with his sister is blatantly obvious to Tewkesbury – they have the same constipated face when worried, as if they are angry at themselves. 

“You’ll see. She’s a bit emotional.”

“Mr. Holmes –” 

Already Sherlock is walking away. He waves, “do hurry up with the wedding, young Marquess. At this rate my sister would be dead before she is wedded.” 

Tewkesbury rushes home. Asking for new towels and a basin of water to be brought to his room after dinner. What would Enola need? He thinks, and brings some sandwiches as well. He wishes he could ask for a bed and new sheets be made for her, but he cannot even let his servants know her imminent arrival. So he starts grinding the herbs Sherlock gave him into a paste and sits by the opened window with a candle lit, wrapping himself in a thick coat against the chilly autumn air. 

He was awakened by a loud thud. Enola’s knocked over his vase on her way in –

“ – why are you up Tewky?” Her dress is dark with blood, her forehead too. She slums down to the floor.

“Enola,” his hands are trembling as he pulls up her dress slightly to reveal a cut along her calf. She does not raise her hand to help him, but she watches intently as he cleans the wound and wraps it with bandages. 

Suddenly, she groans and Tewkesbury stops, worried that he has hurt her. “Sherlock solved it before me,” her head thuds against the wall. Tewkesbury resists the urge to roll his eyes and his hands fidgetly get back to work again. 

“Don’t worry. It’s worse than it looks,” she says, “I just can’t go back to Mrs. Hansen’s like this.” There is a fragile quality to her voice he cannot place. _A bit emotional,_ Sherlock had said. 

“What’s wrong?” Tewkesbury asks. Enola blinks her eyes open. There is a pause before she answers.

“The girls, they were going to be shipped to Asia as prostitutes. And they thought no one would have noticed because they were orphans and –”

“You are not them, Enola.” 

“I could have though,” she whispers. He wants to draw her in, but so much of her is bleeding, so he uses the wet cloth to clean her head’s wound instead. 

“You killed a trained assassin at sixteen,” he says, finding it ironic that his uncle’s words are what he chooses to comfort Enola, “your mother did not leave you when you were a child. She knew you could take care of yourself.” He plasters the paste he made over the injury, “and you have Sherlock, and Mycroft. If someone tries to kidnap you, they would have the full weight of the British government and the world’s greatest detective.” 

“What if they didn’t care enough? Mother didn’t think they would come, her whole plan depends on it. And she still left.” 

He sighs, not sure what else to say, “Enola, you are safe.” _What good would Louis do? Give her flowers?_

Enola hums softly. Now that her wounds are cleaned, he wraps his arms around her. She shifts closer. Tewkesbury thinks she has fallen asleep when she rasps, “tell me something happy.” 

Tewkesbury thinks about telling her the messages he has been leaving her on the papers. It would amuse her that he has somehow done this right under her nose without her knowing. But he wants to keep this a secret longer. When she finds out, she would be comical. Instead he walks over to his closet and takes out the small box that lies there. 

He feels Enola’s eyes on him as he walks away. When he turns, her eyes widen with recognition. She does not stop him and he takes it as a silent acceptance. He has wanted to give it to her in different circumstances, perhaps in an airy room with some flowers. And maybe he harbours multiple fantasies of putting it on her finger and bringing her out to the London streets for the world to see. But this is as good a time as any. After all, danger is how they always find each other. 

He places the box opened between them, cushioned on the leftover bandages, its content shimmering against the candle-lit room, “it’s from my mother. You can keep it, if you want, until you want to wear it.”

He watches her fingers trace the silver gently then clasp around the box with a snap. 

“And I have you,” she smiles. 

“I am nothing. What good would I do in a kidnap?” he replies, not even offended by his words.

“It doesn’t matter. You are here and you believe in me. What good are my mother and brothers in that?”

And suddenly she is not the only one that’s a bit teary eyed.

“I am not alone,” she says with the determination he has come to see as synonymous to her name. 

“No,” he brushes the hair off her face. She chokes on her own spit at his action and her hands messily wipe away tears on her face. Tewkesbury just looks at her, waiting. 

“Thank you,” she laughs wetly, “that’s uh,” she rubs her nose, “that’s silly of me.” 

“No, it’s not.” He lets his hand drop from her waist, but she chases after his touch and presses against his side. 

The next morning, Enola is already gone when he is woken up by the butler. A set of his clothes has gone missing. The ring too, is nowhere to be found. He smiles. 

“Post something on the Pall Mall Gazette for me, will you?” he stops the butler on his way out. He is not Charles who watches him growing up in Basilwether. This butler in London is new and thinks him strange, stranger now, as he reads the advertisement he needs to post. 

_Princess_ _– Keep my present safe and rest well. I await the day you wear it for me. I will see you at the usual place the usual time this Sunday._

\--

Sunday comes with early Autumn gentling through Tewkesbury’s treehouse as he wakes to Enola’s fingers through his hair. Soon it would be too cold for him to sleep outside, but he enjoys Sunday mornings like this, when Enola is free from cases and arrives Basilwether earlier just to spend more time with him. Here they are the closest to the two teenagers braving the English countryside a lifetime ago, with nothing on their mind other than going further and getting lost in the great unknown of London. 

“Let’s skip tea,” he smiles as she swings his hammock back and forth. 

Enola is in a well-structured lilac dress which looks oddly heavy against the wooden floor of the treehouse. He wonders how Enola manages climbing up the tree in such clothing and sits up a little, dropping the newspaper on his lap as he does. 

“Then what’s the point of me travelling all the way from London?” she rolls her eyes, picking up the Pall Mall Gazette and flicks through it habitually. 

_To see me,_ he thinks but says, “my uncle wouldn’t be very agreeable today.”

Sanderson’s Disappearing Girls is the first case she has solved that catches the fancy of the papers. Her name is sprinkled across the back pages of Saturday news like some amusing anecdote of the vanity fair: - 

_“Miss Enola Holmes, sister of the famous Sherlock Holmes esq., inherits her family’s knack for deduction and plays a role in the comprehension of the kidnapper...”_ it reads, going further to detail her upbringing in the country and her recent introduction to the society. “ _She has declined the making of a portrait out of modesty.”_

He spent the better half of last night affronted on her behalf, her pale shaken face that night still imprinted at the back of his mind. If this had been Sherlock that had solved the case, it would have been front page news. Instead Enola gets a small square in the back pages merely as a pretty accessory to the great deeds of Scotland Yard. He kicks Enola’s skirt playfully and grins as she turns to face him, so that she knows he is proud despite his indignation. Still, he knows his uncle would be displeased for a whole other reason. 

“You don’t have to go for tea, Enola,” he says.

“I can handle your uncle.”

He knows that of course. That’s why for the past year he sits through the many tense moments between Enola and his uncle and stays patiently silent. Still, he does not miss the way Enola’s jaw sets and her frown settles every time she steps into his parlour for tea, like she is walking into battle. Her expression going into Basilwether Hall has not changed since the first time they went into it together to confront his assassin. 

Despite his best efforts, the shadows of Basilwether Hall looms over her even before she puts on his ring. “I know you can,” he sighs, “you don’t have to.”

He imagines their marriage life in London, where his residence is rarely graced by his mother or uncle, where his parlour is warm and clustered with lush cushions and flowers he imports from around the world. There Enola would be her own mistress, inviting clients into their home, webbing her network of clues and mystery as he comes home from a day of errands. They would visit their home in the country only when she wants to and they would time it well when his uncle is not there. His mother is perfectly content managing the estate and he can always visit alone.

Enola rolls her eyes at him, like he is some petulant child. “I can’t hide from your uncle forever.” 

_You really can_ , he thinks, but lets it slide. Enola picks up his newspaper, glancing bemusedly at the page about her, and turns to the personals.

“Are you expecting a message from your mother?” he asks. 

“I don’t think so,” she says, distracted, “but Sherlock is being smug about something, more smug than he usually is when he solves a case before me.” 

_Bullocks,_ “and you think the answer lies in the personals?”

“He hinted at it.” 

Tewkesbury never really likes his future brother-in-law. 

\--

Tea predictably did not go well. His uncle was surly and droned on and on about the importance of propriety. It was not the proper chastising as he had feared but it was dreadful in its suffocating boredom. The awkward silence ensued was not diffused by Enola’s usually lively comeback. Instead, Enola sat still almost like his mother and shrugged it off like his uncle had not said anything, until his mother cleverly took over the conversation again. He begged Enola to stay for dinner, not wanting their meeting to end on such a sour note. But Enola declined. 

It has finally caught up on Enola then, the terrible cage marriage with him would put her in. So much so that she did not even bother putting up a fight in the gallery. She hops onto the carriage to London in flight, her lilac dress starting to look too bright in the dimming sunlight of an Autumn afternoon. 

“Are you still meeting the boys at the pub on Wednesday?” she asks in a hurry as she shuffles to settle into the carriage. 

“Yes,” he says tightly, trying to hold onto her hand just a little longer. 

“I am busy this week” she grimaces, looking suspiciously at his mother standing at the back trying to see if she has caught onto their conversation, a refusal before his invitation. 

He nods and too glances back at his mother, there goes his wish to give her a quick peck.

He kisses her hand under his mother’s watchful eyes. As her carriage disappears into the distance, his mother says, “she is starting to warm up to Whimbrel, isn’t she?” 

“No,” he says, because if warming up means an Enola that sits still in a gallery with white knuckles around her teacup, then he would rather Enola loathes his uncle forever. He can tuck her away in the endless chaos of London and the open vastness of the British countryside. Marriage would not be a cage to her, he had sworn. 

_Thistle –– I am sorry about Sunday. You should not have obliged yourself to entertain the foolishness of my uncle. Perhaps you should not come again next week._

—

He finds his left arm yanked to a firm embrace during his walk through Covent Garden. He turns, his grin already forming. Unless he is being assassinated again, there is only one person in the entire world that would do that and at this point, he has gotten used to being assaulted on the streets by strange women, well, one strange woman. 

“You really should be more alert about these things.”

He rolls his eyes. It is an argument they have had before. “Who else is going to assault me on the streets, Enola?” 

“You can be attacked or maimed or killed,” she yanks him further away from the crowd. 

“Then I can do nothing but to wait for you to rescue me.” 

He examines her finally. After the disaster that was two Sundays ago, she had not been in contact. He has gotten used to many things with her, like the fact that sometimes she would disappear for days on end or her reappearance without warning as he tries to pick up some new tulips, but he had thought this disappearance in particular had been deliberate. He wasn’t expecting a warm greeting in the form of his arm held firmly against her soft frame (without her corset, he adds mentally, willing himself not the blush). 

“You’re really quite smart sometimes,” she chimes. 

_Ah_. He looks at the Pall Mall Gazette she presses against his chest. It’s an outdated paper, one of his first messages. 

“There is no need to be smug.” 

He raises his eyebrows. It took her almost two weeks, he thinks, _after_ Sherlock gave her hints. He is all too conscious about how much he is preening. He doesn’t care. 

If this were his other friends, he would have bragged some more, but this is Enola and it is enough to see her slight frown trying to cover up the rising corner of her mouth. “Do you like it?” he asks instead. He knows the answer of course. Enola has always been quite susceptible to his endearments, even if only because she has no idea how to respond in kind, but he wants to savour this one. 

“The number of times you apologise in these is concerning,” she says, her head not looking up at him anymore. They have stopped walking, he realises, and the sun hits blindly against her lightly coloured dress. “And you keep on saying I don’t need to go to Basilwether,” she continues, head still hiding. 

“I mean it,” he says, because he does, “I told you, you didn’t have to deal with my uncle, or mother.” He adds the last bit as an afterthought.

“I thought,” she pauses, like she is nervous. Tewkesbury wants to hold her against him to reassure her. She looks so small, so out of character. 

“You treat your position seriously,” she continues, louder this time, “you ran away and almost got killed trying to do your job. You wanted to do something about your title and your life and you are proud to be the head of your ridiculously aristocratic family.”

It sounds silly when someone says it out loud. He doesn’t say it out loud often, but essentially, “yes.” He affirms, not sure what that has to do with anything. 

“And I am going to be your wife and go to your nincompoop balls and give you heirs?” she waves her hand impatiently while Tewkesbury blushes at the words _wife_ and _heirs_. He really needs to get over her forwardness. 

“Yes? Not the balls, if you don’t want to.”

And then she hits him firmly on his head with the old rolled-up Pall Mall Gazette, “I want to, you useless Marquess,” she hisses. 

“I didn’t agree to marry you thinking you are some country boy I can run away with. And I thought,” she inhales and Tewkesbury watches in horror as angry tears ran down from her cheeks, “I thought you thought about it too. How I fit in your life.” 

“I did,” he rushes to give her his handkerchief, impatient at the fact that he could not hold her against him in public, “we have a nice spacious place in London and we don’t ever have to talk to my uncle if you don’t want to and never the balls –” 

_Wait_ , he halts suddenly. “You said you wanted to?”

“Yes,” she throws the handkerchief back at him, “ _I want to,_ your dances and uncle and your mansion in the country. That’s what _fitting together_ means. That’s what the wife of the Marquess _does_ . That’s what your mother did. _And that’s what I am going to do_. I can’t have you without the title and if I don’t have you entirely then I don’t have you at all.” 

He blinks at her, in her loose dress and messy hair. That actually makes sense. 

“And my children are not going to grow up in a house where half of their family is missing, and not with a father that’s going to disappear somewhere else half the time.” 

_All the things she missed growing up –_ how silly of him. He promised, that night in his room with his ring and long ago, before he even asked for her hands in marriage, before all the other promises he made about not caging her in convention – she wouldn’t be alone. 

“What about your work and London and not being conventional?” he asks, needing reassurance still. 

“It doesn’t stop you from being a Marquess to be with me. Then being your wife wouldn’t stop me from being a detective. _I will have both Tewky, so don’t you dare stop me.”_

Enola looks ethereal in her plain dress and smokey London air and he thinks _God, what a woman_ and quickly after _she really is so much smarter than me_ and he grins.

**Author's Note:**

> I know given Tewky's wealth and title it's likely that if he had gone to an university he would probably have been to Oxbridge, which would not have been in London (some people have assumed the original Sherlock had gone to Oxbridge as well, given that it seems like he came from money). But for the sake of the story and my guess that Tewky being forward-thinking would have hated the stuffy snobbish views of the Oxbridge academia at the time, I like to think that he had gone out of his way to study at UCL, which would be in London and would fit my story. More importantly, it was the first British university to have admitted female students on fully equal terms to men, in all faculties except Medicine and also the first English secular university. Also, it's where Dr. Watson got his degree.


End file.
